


The Same

by fragilelittleteacup



Category: Hannibal (TV), True Detective
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon Compliant, Crossover Pairings, Drabble, Dubious Consent (mentioned), Lovers, M/M, Murder (mentioned), Scars, Violence (mentioned), takes place after hannibal s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:10:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8906731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilelittleteacup/pseuds/fragilelittleteacup
Summary: Two old friends come together again.





	

Will looked up from his fishing lures, as the sound of tyres against gravel sounded in the distance. Approaching.

He lowered his tools to the table, sliding off his tattered leather gloves. He thumbed the knife that he kept strapped to his waist. His breathing slowed. His heart raced. Thoughts of blood and violence and death filled his mind, Abagail’s face swimming before his eyes, Hannibal’s slow accent humming in his ears like a sickening, hypnotic music.

It was only when the red, battered truck pulled up in front of the bungalow that he relaxed.

Rustin Cohle. Draped across the car seat, one hand on the steering wheel, the other dangling between his spread legs. A cigarette hung from his mouth, held between his lips. His face was as distant and haunted as usual, a stray curl of hair hanging down his forehead. Will had always seen himself in Rust. They were both wounded, battered, haunted, and alienated by society that didn’t want to understand them; but they both knew each other’s ghosts, and neither of them felt the need to dwell in it when they were together.

They were a couple of fucked-up closet romantics.

Rust got out of the car, closed the door behind him with a metallic thud. Will watched the way he approached. His slow, steady walk, his swaying hips. His lean frame was muscular under his white singlet, and his skin was a tanned Texan brown. He waltzed with a slow, patient gait; he was a cowboy, a lone ranger, a gunslinging vigilante who disregarded the laws and values of his patriotic counterparts. He was willing to do whatever it took to achieve justice, and Will had always admired that about him.

It was only now he’d gotten out of the car that Will could see the bruises that covered the left half of his angular face.

“Thought I recognised that truck,” Will said, looking back down at his lures, “Been a long time, Rust.”

Rust nodded in reply, pulling the cigarette from his lips, and Will had _missed_ him. He’d missed the way Rust didn’t feel the need to chatter, didn’t feel any obligation to make bullshit small talk. He’d missed the deadeye honesty with which Rust rejected or accepted the world around him. Despite everything that had happened to them separately over these many years, Will felt like it was only yesterday he’d last seen Rust.

 “Heard about what happened, with that psychiatrist of yours.” Rust said flatly, dropping the cigarette and stepping on it, demonstrating his usual apathy for etiquette, “My condolences.”

Will nodded as well, taking in the extent of the bruising that swelled the skin over Rust’s cheekbone. He’d missed Rust’s low, gravelly accent, his unhurried drawl of a voice. Rust came without propriety or respectability and, somehow, that made him even more relatable in Will’s eyes. His instability and unpredictability ran just below his skin. Like a wild animal, like a wounded bear.

“Thought I might stop on by.” Rust continued. His hands hung by his thighs, long fingers curled into loose fists. “Catch up, for old time’s sake.”

Will considered him carefully. Rust wasn’t the sort of person who sought out company for the sake of company– Will knew this, because they were the same. Which meant that Rust was lying.

In the past, Will might’ve let him lie, might’ve let him get by with an excuse, because he’d have been so desperate for human company that he’d have ignored the fact Rust was obviously bullshitting him. But now, he was very used to being alone, and he was more of a survivalist than he’d ever been before. He was paranoid. Untrusting. And he wouldn’t take obscurity for an answer.

“Come on, Rust,” Will sat back in his chair, “You’re not here just to say hello. What happened to your face?”

Rust watched him with half-lidded, tired eyes. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping.

“Just lost the only friend I’ve had in a long while. He beat the shit out of me,” Rust smiled flatly, “and, honestly speakin’, I probably deserved it. There ain’t no way to fix it, so I wanted to come here and spend some time with the one goddamn person on this planet who gives even the smallest shit about me.”

Will contemplated him for a moment longer, then stood. That was an honest answer and- for now- that was all he needed.

“Alright,” he gestured with his chin to the bungalow behind him, “come inside.”

Rust nodded, and advanced up the stairs. His shoes made scuffed noises against the wooden porch.

“You want a coffee?”

“Sure, man, thanks. Unless you’ve got anythin’ stronger?”

Will shook his head as he opened the door. “Alcohol isn’t good for me.”

Rust laughed quietly. “You and me both, man.”

 

***

 

They sat outside and watched the river flow.

“You mind if I smoke?”

“Nah.” Will shook his head, took a slow pull of his coffee.

“Probably should’ve asked that before,” Rust mused, “you forget, y’know. When you aren’t _sociable_.”

Will smiled, enjoying the way Rust drew the word out, snarling around it lazily. They shared a similar contempt for everything conventional and mainstream.

Will watched the way Rust lit his cigarette. Will liked the shape his face took when he lit it, his cheekbones becoming more pronounced, his jaw jutting forward, lips holding the cigarette in place. He liked the way Rust’s strong, large hands curled over the cigarette. There was something attractively masculine about him. A masculinity that Will had never seen in his own boyish face, even at the age he’d reached now.

They sat for so long that day became night, and somewhere around twilight Will made his decision. He walked over to Rust’s chair and looked down at him, putting a hand gently against his face. Rust looked back up at him, eyes hooded.

“It was his wife,” he said, “my friend’s wife. She cornered me when I was drunk, and she…”

Will’s fingers stilled on Rust’s cheek. He didn’t need Rust to finish the sentence, because he saw the depth of discomfort in Rust’s eyes, and he knew what had happened.

“There’s a word for that, Rust.”

Rust shrugged noncommittally. “Yeah, I know.”

Will let his hand fall, and he took a step backwards. But Rust reached up, putting one of those big hands on his waist. Will liked how it felt when Rust touched him like that. Rust didn’t need to overtly display his masculinity, or make a show of false machismo; he was simply strong, in a way that was inherent and honest.

But the best of all? Will understood him.

“You’re not her.” Rust said softly.

 

***

 

Will’s bed was small, hardly suited for sex, but it worked well enough.

Rust was bigger than him, but gentle, holding Will down with careful hands. He kissed with a desperation that said it’d been too long since he’d had a good time with nothing to suffocate him– and Will matched his fever in kind, because he knew what it was like. He understood the frenzied passion that loneliness brought.

He arched against Rust, tasted cigarettes and hard whiskey. They discovered each other’s bodies. The scars and the marks and the pain that all these years had left in their wake. Rust slid his tongue over the monstrosity of a scar that butchered Will’s abdomen, and Will gasped. It had been so long since someone had touched that part of him. He did the same for Rust; kissing the mass of scar tissue that peppered the left side of his body, skin mottled and lumpy under his fingertips. They didn’t treat each other like fragile, broken things. They treated each other with respect. With desire, instead of pity.

For someone so desperate, Rust was patient with him. He took the time to prepare Will, do it properly, and when he lifted Will’s legs up around his shoulders, he paused. Asking for permission, because no one had ever asked _him_ for permission.

Will nodded, taking a slow preparatory breath.

“I’m good,” he whispered, because he knew what Rust needed to hear, “I’m good. Go ahead.”

Rust smiled lovingly at him, a rare moment of softness that Will was shocked to see. He almost wanted to look away, but instead he smiled back, a flash of something innocent.

Something he’d long ago forgone.

 

***

 

Will lay draped over Rust’s chest. It was nice, and different. They were both unaccustomed to the warm, soft pleasure that lying with someone brought.

“You can smoke.” Will muttered, his eyes closed. “If you want.”

Rust laughed quietly. “If you wanna get up and get my cigarettes then, yeah, sure, I will.”

Will considered it. “Nah.”

Rust drew his fingers slowly up and down Will’s shoulder, the touch trailing down Will’s spine.

“One hell of a scar he gave you, William,” Rust drawled, his voice throaty and slow.

“Mm,” Will agreed.

“You love him?”

Will’s eyes opened. He gazed ahead into nothing.

“…Sorry,” Rust sighed.

“It’s fine. Just wish I knew the answer to that question.” Will paused. “You told me what it was like, losing a daughter. Wasn’t until Hannibal came into my life that I knew what you meant.”

He felt Rust stiffen under him.

“Yeah, I heard about the Hobbs girl.” His voice was flat, and Will knew why. Abagail hadn’t been his daughter– and, to a man who had lost his child, the comparison would be insulting.

“Not just her.” Will elaborated quietly. “I got a someone pregnant. A woman named Margot. Hannibal made sure the baby died… he didn’t want anyone to come between us.”

Rust considered that for a moment. “…Fuck. So why’d he carve you up?”

That question, Will could very easily answer. “Because I betrayed him.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Will smiled flatly. Rust’s shock and incredulousness came as no surprise. Will was very well aware that a void existed between him and the rest of the world and, while he had no power over his own perspective, he knew that no other person understood the depth of complexity that Hannibal had pulled him into.

“I was supposed to go with him,” Will murmured, “I was supposed to be on his side, when the end came.”

Rust laughed dryly. “Well. Sounds like you are now.”

Will let out a breath of laughter, humourless and flat.

“Think he’ll forgive you?”

“No.” Will craned his head to look up at Rust, into his dark eyes. “What about you? Do you think your friend will forgive you?”

Rust laughed again, angry this time. “Don’t fuckin’ care if he does or not. It’s his fault.” He sucked in a sharp breath, lifting a hand to rub restless fingers against his face. “It’s all his goddamn fault. If he hadn’t pushed his wife to the edge, she’d never have jumped.”

“He sounds like a man who doesn’t know what he wants,” Will mused.

“He’s a hypocritical asshole.”

Will smiled fondly. “You should stay here with me.”

Rust grinned. “Fuckin’ and fishin’, huh?”

“Sounds good to me.” Will looked up at him again, smiling.

They kissed, and it was good– in a way things hadn’t been for a very, very long time.

  
  


 

 

 


End file.
